Life as a Doctor – Site Title

After reading this article by Janice Goveas, I knew I had to call someone. Mother of my old dear patient, who left for heavenly abode almost 2 years ago. I had written about him the angelic boy with Acute Leukaemia, who succumbed to a very brave battle against his disease.

I had, in the course of his long treatment interacted a lot with almost whole of his family- mother, father, sister, aunts. When he passed away his shocked and devastated mother had called me and told me about his demise. After that I lost touch with her but I missed the sweet boy- especially on his birthday, the first anniversary if his death. Yet never mustered the courage to call his mother. Will it be the right time? I don’t want to remind her of him, what do I speak?

It will never be the right time. A departed son who left behind 13 years of memories cannot be forgotten. Not in a year, or a decade or even a lifetime. He will always live in her heart, a wound that probably won’t ever heal. So I finally decided to do the deed.

She didn’t recognise me for around a minute or so and I didn’t want to call myself her son’s anaethetist. I just waited for her to recognise me. Which she did and for a moment she wasn’t sure I even knew about his demise. After a few cursory exchanges we both cried for a few minutes. Words flowed effortlessly and I realised I was mostly listening and intermittently talking. She told me how much she missed her boy and her home was full of his memories. She and her husband had gone deep into soul healing philosophy and were struggling to live a normal life. They believed in life after death and were hoping to find their dear boy some day again. Their daughter was trying to get back to a normal life too. They had finally managed to get over a large part of the painful loss.

The conversation was lot longer than I had expected and though it wasn’t easy I am glad I called her. I somehow felt much lighter after talking to her. An unknown lady, probably 15 years my senior and we met for a few months by chance. She has invited me to her place and she wants to tell me lot more about her dear boy. I think I shall pay her a visit, hopefully I can help her in some way by sharing the memories of her son’s small journey with her.

Yesterday was a long tiring day and by the time I had retired, it was rather late. Today was going to be a very long day, which necessitated me to rise early in the morning. To get a few more minutes to sleep in the morning, I had my long refreshing bath late at night. In the morning, with great difficulty I finally got up. Late but still a little sooner than I would have, since I had planned a lovely treat for myself in the morning. Skipped bath, had quick tea. Dressed. Since the OT was going to run for long hours, I knew my breakfast was going to be delayed indefinitely. And hence the plan for my seven minutes of pleasure.

I stepped into the kitchen, opened the box and carefully lifted out a ripe big mango. Few seconds to enjoy the fragrance of a ripe alphonso. Washed it carefully and patted dry. With a sharp knife I cut it into large pieces. The aroma of the fruit was heady and filled the kitchen. Carefully, I leaned over the kitchen counter (breakfasts on working days are seldom had sitting at the table) and relished the mango. Slowly at first and later with a gluttonous urgency. The pulp covering the seed, and later the pieces, all were gulped down in matter of seven minutes. And those were probably the most amazing seven minutes of my day. Rest of the day was a busy and forgotten about quickly. But those seven minutes in the morning made the rest of my day lovely.